On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 8:53 AM, Brendan Eich <bren...@mozilla.org> wrote: > I'm in the same boat. I see the attraction, very long run. Perhaps others > will weigh in.
I guess very few developers off this list know that [[Prototype]] exists. That is, the special double square bracket syntax is not something developers use. Thus no change in [[Prototype]] will make an improvement outside this list. On the other hand, Axel's point is taken: the subject of 'prototype' is confusing. But this is only partly terminology; much of the problem is built in to the system. The operation of 'new' is weird, the flexibility allowed by __proto__ is unsettling and Object.create() completes the puzzle. I think Axel's original post had a good suggestion: in descriptions modify the property with its container. Consider: An object's |__proto__| property references its constructor's |prototype| property. Notice I paired object with __proto__ and constructor with prototype. Now I mangle Axel: - prototype (of an obj): the “fallback” object, access via __proto__ - prototype (of a constructor): value of Constr.prototype If we consistently changed documentation (MDN etc) to use "prototype of and object" and "prototype of a constructor" perhaps the ambiguity would be less. (I suggest avoiding "prototype of a type" to avoid a similar issue with the terminology for 'type'). jjb _______________________________________________ es-discuss mailing list es-discuss@mozilla.org https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
